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In the mobile industry, a 14-year lead is undoubtedly impressive. But Nokia's lead has gradually declined in the past few years, for a number of reasons. Here's what Nokia did wrong -- or alternatively, what Samsung did right -- that led to one handset company's rise over the other.

When Panos Ipeirotis checked his Amazon Web Services bill last week, he started to sweat. It was $1,177.76 -- much more than he'd ever been charged before -- and it was going up another $50 to $100 with each passing hour. He had no idea why. After a some investigation, he found the problem. He had accidentally invented a brand new type of internet attack, thanks to an idiosyncrasy in the online spreadsheets Google runs on its Google Docs service, and he had inadvertently trained this attack on himself.

In this, the age of cloud computing, Amazon's service is so popular, it now runs about one percent of the entire internet, according to research from independent outfit DeepField Networks. Another study from research outfit 451Group indicates that a similar service from the Texas-based Rackspace has gained a significant foothold as well, and other cloud services, such as the Saleforce-owned Heroku, have at least gained a significant mindshare among the net's leading developers. But despite some strong reviews from those who have actually used it, Microsoft Azure -- more than two years after its debut -- is still on the edge of the conversation.

Taking the stand during the ongoing court battle between Google and Oracle over the use of the Java programming language on Google's Android mobile operating system, Jonathan Schwartz -- the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java -- said that Java has always been free to use and that although Sun didn't necessarily like the way Android used Java, it had no intention of stopping it.

The combination of Google's new storage service, Google Drive, and the company's recently unified terms of service and privacy policy, have riled the Internet into demanding to know why Google seemed to be claiming ownership of their customers' files. As it turns out, the company claims no ownership -- it says so right in the terms of service, and a comparison between Google Drive's terms and that of other storage services turns up few material differences, except for a couple of questionable terms that may land your content in Google's promotional materials.

Federal judge William Alsup is set to decide whether Oracle can resurrect one of its dead Java patents as it attempts to prove that Google stole its intellectual property in building the Android mobile operating system. The tussle could help decide whether Google must ultimate pay damages to Oracle, but it also highlights almost comical back and forth that characterizes this sort of patent trial.

If you've got compromising photos on your smartphone you'd like to keep under lock and key, you need a virtual safety-deposit box like FaceVault. FaceVault lets you store photos securely behind both a face unlock and a pattern recognition lock.

With all the talk focused on yesterday's big Google Drive reveal it's all too easy to miss today's announcement concerning Schemer. Schemer, Google's newest social platform that allows users to suggest and track activities, has just become available to the general public, but of course we at GeekDad have been hard at work within the engine ever since the beta.

Google Drive, after years of rumors, is here to take on the likes of Dropbox and iCloud as the cloud-storage service of choice. After spending a few hours hands on, its clear that the biggest differentiator for Drive is its integration with other Google products.

Google will tightly integrate its new GDrive online storage service with an upcoming version of its browser-based Chrome OS operating system, according to Sundar Pichai, the man who oversees development of the company's Chrome products as well as its Google Apps online services.

Sites like HotOrNot, which invite lurkers to rank the attractiveness of complete strangers, have been around for years. But could you make the same shallow judgements about your friends? It looks like Google thinks you can.

Taking the stand on Tuesday during the ongoing trial over Google's use of the Java programming language on its Android mobile operating system, Google executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt strongly defended the company against accusations that it illegally lifted parts of the Java platform from Sun Microsystems. "My understanding was what we were doing was permissible," Schmidt said. "From the sum of my experiences and interactions, I was very sure what we were doing was legally correct."

On Tuesday, the Samsung-built Galaxy Nexus went on sale in the Google Play store at a price of $399, marking the first physical item to be sold through Google Play and the second time Google is attempting to sell a phone of its own.

As the trial over Android's use of the Java programming language entered its second week, the man who oversees Google's mobile operating system took the stand, and under questioning from Oracle -- the company suing Google -- Andy Rubin confirmed that at one point, Google tried to secure a partnership with Sun Microsystems that would have given it the explicit right to use the Java platform.

The long-rumored Google Drive cloud storage service is expected to be launching this week, and if one seemingly credible launch partner leak is not enough to back that this is the real deal, rivals' preemptive strikes seem to support that it's coming.